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Trier , Germany , and Luxembourg
October 17, 2003

My Mom, the kids and I had a short and not totally un-enjoyable trip to Trier . We drove around the city for quite a while before finding a place to park and sightsee. We saw the Porta Nigra, which is an old Roman gate. We also saw the house in which Karl Marx was born. It is really a beautiful city in the Mosul River area. The second day of our trip we headed to Luxembourg , and after driving aimlessly about for a long time, (the maps stink and the roads were not marked well), we found the cemetery where Patton was buried.  The cemetery was very beautiful. Patton insisted on being buried with his men and lies in an unadorned grave with a simple white marble cross, as do all the others interred there. We were going to continue on to Vianden, (at the top of Luxembourg), to see the castle there but we couldn't find the road that we needed so we decided to go home and head to Poland for the weekend instead.

Well, we got onto A6 and hit stau after stau (traffic jams) due to construction.  Just before Heilbronn , we hit another stau and at that point I noticed that my battery light was on.   Within minutes, system after system began to shut down and I watched my gage drain. We were losing juice.  Thirty minutes later the car was COMPLETELY dead. 

Remember what I have said about the exits off the autobahn? Well, we had been crawling along at 5 mph, when we were not stopped at an idle, and we couldn't make it to a rest stop or an exit.  We did not even know for certain where we really were, just a vague idea which exit we were near. This is just around 6:00 p.m.

I managed to pull over to the far right side, though there is not really any shoulder and my van is, well quite large. I pulled out my cell phone and called ADAC, (the German road service) but the number did not go through. I got some message in German. I called again and had Emily, who understands German, listen to the message. She tells me that the message is saying they are out of the office! Out of the office? It's ROAD SERVICE! How can they be out of the office?

I called my friend Tim, who lives in Stuttgart - about 30 minutes away...no answer.  I called Jennifer and she agreed to call ADAC for me. She got through and gave them our approximate location. They told her it would be 10 -60 minutes.

An hour later the ADAC guy arrived, and tried to jump the car. Now, even I knew it was not the battery, but he insisted on trying even when I tried to explain it to him. The battery didn't charge (DUH!) and after counting how many people we have in the car, he said he would send a tow truck.

Twenty minutes later we talked to the ADAC office and we finally got an English speaking guy who told us that the tow truck would be there in 30 minutes.  It was 7:45 p.m.

By 10:30 he was still not there. The stau had since broken up and the traffic was whizzing by the car so quickly that the van was rocking back and forth like a rocking chair. Since the car was dead, due to the alternator I am sure, I had no hazard lights that I could put on to signal oncoming traffic. I had a reflective triangle that I put out about 100 yards back, but it was largely ineffective and my car was just a lump in the dark.

My mom and I decided to get the kids out of the car in case the van got nailed in the dark, since as I said; we were on a very narrow shoulder. We all got out and climbed about four feet down into a ditch on the side of the autobahn. I had a tiny airplane blanket and also a polar fleece blanket in the car so we bundled the kids as best we could. I even dug socks out of the suitcase to put on their hands. Thank goodness we all had our winter jackets, but even so they were freezing.

By this time Jennifer had called ADAC several more times, and each time they insisted that they were on their way. I was also trying to get a hold of Tim during this time to come and get the kids out of the cold, but we could not seem to maintain a phone connection.

At 10:45 Jennifer said she would call Tim again and tell him to keep trying to call me, but she could no longer help because her water had broken and she had to go to the hospital to have the baby! I finally get a hold of Tim who says he will pick us up ASAP.

Finally around 11:15 ADAC arrives.  He loads the van onto a platform truck but I cannot make him understand we want to car to go to our house not just the "nearest garage.” He also says that there is only room in the truck for two people and that the rest of us, (namely Mom and two kids), would have to wait by the side of the road... I mean AUTOBAHN where cars speed by going over 100mph- until someone- namely me- came back and got them. I'm supposed to leave Mom and two of my kids behind, freezing on the freeway? I tried explaining that my friend would be arriving any minute and could he just wait?

As all this confusion is happening another guy in need of ADAC pulls over. The ADAC man tried unsuccessfully to jump his car, (hmmmm, must be the alternator), before hitching it up to a tow bar behind the truck. Now there is only one available seat in the truck.

Just then, in the nick of time, Tim drove up! Yeah! Mom and the kids piled into his warm car and Tim tried to talk to the ADAC man. We figured out that we had to go to the ADAC office in Heilbronn to sign some papers first and then he would tow the car wherever we wanted as per our policy.

Tim and Mom and kids followed the truck which was now carrying the van, and pulling the other guys car behind it. I rode in the truck between the ADAC man and the other guy as they chattered away in German.  It was now a little past midnight . 

We arrived at the ADAC office and signed the papers but because of the distance, the hour, and the fact that they were very busy, they were reluctant to drive the 100 km to Würzburg, (where the American repair garage is). We decided to go home and meet up with them the next morning. They said they would call when they are 30 minutes out from my home so we could meet them and get them signed onto post.

As the kids lay in the ditch last night being showered by gravel and shivering under a thin blanket, we gazed at the stars- it was very cold and very clear- and we breathed deeply the fumes of exhaust. I commented out loud that this was not quite what we had in mind when we had discussed star gazing with their Dad...  They were scared, tired, hungry and freezing cold.  All of them cried at one point or another and I was close to it once or twice myself, but figured my mascara would run and I would look like an idiot when the ADAC guy finally did appear.

They told Jennifer that there had been an accident in Mannheim which is why they were delayed, but I think they were just busy and were not concerned that we were in what we considered, an unsafe situation. Needless to say I am less than impressed with ADAC.  We are still waiting for the phone call to meet them with the car. They said before Noon , it is now 11:49 a.m. ..?

Anyway, this is yet another chapter in the saga of my life, ha ha ha! I am just lucky Mom was with us as it would have been a lot more difficult had I been alone. Mom really reined me in a few times when I was feeling ticked off and overwhelmed. Thanks Mom.

By the way, Gretchen Abigail Brewster was born this morning ( October 18, 2003 ) at 5:31 a.m. , 9 lbs 5 oz!

Oh, I must add one more thing…the ADAC guys were both crotchety old men that did not speak any... let me reiterate that part.... ANY... English.  And Emily had a hard time understanding them because they spoke with a Schwäbish dialect- (we were in a different region).  Kind of like when you go down south and talk to someone with a southern accent- sometimes you cannot understand what they are saying.  

Yeah, it was definitely an exciting trip. Can't wait to see what goes wrong on the next one!

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